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Showing posts with label Utah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Utah. Show all posts

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Mapping the lives and deaths of workers: An emerging way to tell the story of occupational health and safety

Today's post is shared from scienceblogs.com
When Bethany Boggess first debuted her online mapping project, she didn’t expect it to attract so much attention. But within just six months of its launch, people from all over the world are sending in reports and helping her build a dynamic picture of the lives and deaths of workers.
The project is called the Global Worker Watch and it’s quite literally a living map of worker fatalities and catastrophes from around the globe. When you go to the site, you’ll see a world map speckled with blue dots, each representing a reported occupational death, illness or disaster. Here are just a few I randomly clicked on: In March in Pakistan, four workers died and 18 were injured when a gas cylinder exploded at a gas company. Also in March in Gujarat, India, two workers died of silicosis, an occupational disease caused by the inhalation of silica dust. Three workers have died in the mines of Coahuila, Mexico, since January. In February, a worker at an Iron County mine site in Utah died after getting trapped on a conveyer belt. Just a few days ago, a worker in the United Kingdom died after falling from an electricity tower. And in May, police in Cambodia opened fire during a labor protest, killing four people.
“Obviously, I’m only capturing the tip of the iceberg,” said Boggess, a 26-year-old epidemiology student at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Austin. “But if I’m just one person and I can do this in six...
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Saturday, October 26, 2013

Kings Dominion: Please Shut Down "Miners' Revenge" Halloween Attraction

Making a Halloween Attraction out of a fatal work disaster is in bad taste and repulsive. Today's post was shared from change.org

Kings Dominion hopes to make some big bucks this year with a Halloween attraction called “Miners’ Revenge.”

According to Kings Dominion website, which is selling tickets for $32.99, the theme of this Halloween thriller is this:

"Alone in the darkness… the only sound is the pulsing of your heart as the searing  heat slowly boils you alive… It was reported to be the worst coal mine accident in history. The families of missing miners begged for help but it was decided that a rescue was too dangerous. The miners were left entombed deep underground. Lamps at their sides and pick-axes in their hands they are searching for the men who left them to die…"

Really?

I can’t even describe my outrage reading this advertisement.

In April 2010, we had the Upper Big Branch explosion in West Virginia where rescuers desperately searched in unfathomable conditions hoping, praying to find one of the 29 Upper Big Branch miners alive.

    It was in 2007 when a mine rescue had to be abandoned at the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah where six miners were trapped (and not presumed dead in the beginning). The rescue was dangerous and considered one of the most difficult in history, and then three rescuers perished trying to desperately dig to get to their mining brothers.

    It was in 2006 when we had the triple disasters of Sago, Darby and Aracoma — losing 19 miners in West Virginia  to fire and CO poisoning, rescuers braving horrific conditions looking for their lost brothers.

    In 2001 — 13 miners killed at the Jim Walters Mine in Alabama only days after 9/11. Twelve of those who perished were miners who would not leave the mine, and were trying to rescue one of their own.

    We have the 1993 Magma Mine accident in Arizona in which a half million pound raise collapsed on four miners in a copper mine.

    The 1992 South Mountain Mine disaster in West Virginia  where eight perished.
    In the 1999 Kaiser explosion in Louisana no one died, but Gary Guy was found by a fellow employee with his skin peeling off from caustic chemicals. Twenty-two were injured — 14 seriously.

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